[Marxism] Re: some comments on WCPI position

[paolochiocchetti@xxxxxx]

I appreciate the comment of Rohan over the WCPI position. He rightly points
out how we have to be sensible to a position moved by the fact that Political
Islam regimes have smashed and will smash thoroughly communists, the left,
women's movements, and workers' movements. And he points to the ambiguities
and perils of this position.

But he's wrong when he says that WCPI calls for a civilian resistance. From
their site we can find that their tactics is a mixed one: on one hand surely
civilian resistance through strikes, petitions, demos, etc (which tries
also to gather external support from the anti-war and labor movements),
but on the other hand also armed resistance.
Only that their armed resistance is thought as a collective action of 
neighbourhoods
and workplaces aimed at keeping out both occupation&gov't forces and political
islam and to create "liberated zones" in which to experiment council and
people's power.
We can disagree but surely it's not defeatism and it's highly interesting
for us marxists, 'cause it's basically the application of the principle
that the working class have to wage economic and political struggle (even
when in broad fronts or alike) with independence of aims and organisation
(or it will be duped or smashed or ineffective).

Best regards,
Paolo



Rohan Gaiswinkler wrote:
>I wanted to comment on the WCPI position of not supporting the armed resistance
in Iraq >on the basis of their opposition to its... religo-politics.

>Iraqis are less likely to be won to a party which side-steps direct armed
resistance to the imperial butchery they face.  Placing conditions on the
tactics of a resistance to the most Xbrutal repression, when that resistance
is atomised and without a cohesive leadership, is defeatist.  In placing
these conditions, they ask us to do likewise.

>Reading this list only confirms the correctness of this position, which
is also the position of the organisation I belong to, the Democratis Socialist
Tendency, of the Socialist Alliance >in Australia.  That probably sounds
like a "plug" to some, however I'm just commenting on how discussion on
this list allows you to reasses your own position in comparison with what
others are saying.

>Having said all this, I feel a great deal of sympathy toward WCPI people.
 I dont know a lot about what happened to the marxist left in Iran in the
1979 revolution and its >aftermath, but I suspect it might have been um,
unpleasant.

>Could someone who is genuinely well grounded in that era of Iran comment
please?

>Anyway I don't think it is patronising politically to suggest that the
political position of the WCPI is probably refracted through a prism of
fear.  Now some could accuse me >Zof "psychologising" a political position.

Well I find it a bit harder to judge whether or not my explanation is 
"over-psychologisng"

>[I'm now looking for better terminology now] because I live in a very safe
first-world country.  I've never had a loaded gun pointed at me, nor been
in a war-zone.

>Iraq has been through so much war and devistation.  What would happen to
WCPI people if a highly anti-communist militant-Islam formed an "Islamic
state" for Iraq?
>I would think that anti-communism is now more important to [what many prefer
to call "political Islam" -- mainstream West calls "Islamic fundamentalism"]
(ok) political Islam due to the Afghanistan war. (Not the recent one.)


>I understand that the WCPI are calling for civil resistance to US occupation
rather than armed resistance.  Fred Feldman worried aloud that the US might
engineer a dispute >which, for them "divides the enemy".  He concluded perhaps
this is less likely because the US is so universally despised.

>Is it necessary for WCPI to denounce the armed struggle, in order to abstain?
 Lets say the WCPI changed its position, with the new one being:
>"We support the armed resistance struggle (but we're not taking part in
it ourselves)."  They would have to go underground - the US and Allawi wouldn't
accept it - which means >they're on the run and the enemy, part of the armed
resistance no matter how hard they protest otherwise.

>Sadly, I think that by abstaining from armed struggle and taking part in
a US manufactured political process (if that is what they are doing) they
will increase the risk to >themselves further through marginalisation.

>But its also easy to judge people who are in a much more difficult and
dangerous situation than your own.

>Rohan



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